


The Tangle of Our Desertion

by LibertinePast



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: Amoush, F/M, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Romance, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 14:18:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19252891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibertinePast/pseuds/LibertinePast
Summary: Amanda goes to check on Anoush after the beatdown at the dealership. Daniel's war is tearing everything down, and building something up.





	The Tangle of Our Desertion

The North Hollywood dealership faced south for good feng shui, but in the late afternoon the sun got so hot in the showroom, even the A/C on 60 couldn’t touch it.  Amanda rushed through the door to find the staff reaching their daily breaking point—shiny noses, patchy makeup—but today they were particularly low on morale.

“Where is he?” Amanda frowned at Sheila, who was filling for the receptionist who’d run for the hills when she saw a customer going postal.  “Is he okay?”

“Break room…and I’m not sure. You know Anoush—not exactly the silent type. He hasn’t said _anything_ since it happened. _”_

She bit her lip, the searing sun on her black dress nauseating. “That’s not good.”

She called Daniel on her way to the hallway, and it went to voicemail again. She shoved her phone in her too-small purse and gave up on the zipper.

She leaned into the break room doorframe and found Anoush slumped on the swanky couch. He’d taken off his suit jacket and vest and was holding something under his shirt. His hair was tufty and he looked perfectly miserable. 

Whenever Amanda felt a pang of sadness, the wisecracks came.  She didn’t know any other way. It had gotten her through a painful childhood, a miscarriage after Sam, the loss of Mr. Miyagi. “Thanks for shielding the E-class. Not even a ding on it.” 

His lips curled into a sad smile as he lolled his head on the cushion towards her.  “…hey. You didn’t have to come, but…thanks.”

“Are you alright?” she sighed, and sat down on the couch next to him.

“Been better, but…y’know. At least getting interrogated on the hood of a car gets you some North Hollywood cred.”

She smirked at him, which he weakly returned.  “Listen…Daniel was supposed to tell Johnny that his son was living with us.  If he hadn’t skirted the whole issue, this never would’ve happened…but I still think you should press charges.”

“Oh God, no, he groaned. “I really don’t want to see Ivan Drago in court. It’ll just make everything worse for you guys, not to mention his kid. I’ll cherish the fact that he didn’t take a dump on my shoes and leave well enough alone.”

“I watched the security footage. You took one hell of a left hook. Let me see.”  She lifted his shirt tails and he flinched, clutching his cold compress tighter.  “You’re holding a Lean Cuisine on it??” 

“It hurt to twist the ice cube tray,” he said, flushed with embarrassment.

Amanda frowned deeply. “I’ll do it. And let’s put that shrimp scampi away before Karen loses her shit.”  When she moved the not-so-frozen dinner from his side, a huge blob of purple skin was exposed.  “ _Oh_ my God? Anoush, that’s really bad. It looks like an asteroid hit a winery.”

His breathing kicked up and his eyes clenched shut. “H’okay, that escalated since the last time I looked at it.”  

Amanda rushed to fill a Ziplock bag with ice from the freezer.  A douchebag from the financing department peeked in at Anoush, not seeing the boss at the sink.  “Hey, Everlast, way to stand there and take it, bruh!” he snickered with a thumbs up.

“Shut up, Terry!” Amanda called out.

He froze in terror, then squeaked away down the hall. “Yes Mrs. LaRusso.” 

Amanda came back to the couch and lifted his shirt. He tried to look away from her face and she tried not to stare at his chest. She held the ice to his side and put her other arm around his back.  She pressed the ice only slightly harder and he gasped. “Aaagh!”

“Alright, that’s it. Let me take you to the walk-in—no stubborn Man-Crap, alright? Don’t make me throw you over my shoulder. You know I could.”

He nodded worriedly.  “Oh, I know it…let me go grab my phone, make a pitstop, pray that a highlight reel of my beatdown isn’t looping in the conference room…”

“If anyone pulls that kind of shit, I will make Johnny Lawrence look tame!” Amanda called after him.  

When he came back, he was staggering along looking pale and spacey.  His fly was wide open and he only had one shoe on.

“An _oush_?” Amanda whimpered, worry lines cutting deep in her brow. “What the hell, did you just get assaulted in the bathroom, too?”

“Oh…everything’s fine, just…pissed some blood…no big deal, I read my sister’s Judy Blume books, s’all good. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Anousshh,” he mumbled, his eyelids fluttering until he swayed forward and planked into her arms.

“Oh, shit!” She struggled against the dead weight of him and found her balance. She lowered him onto her knees gently. “Anoush?? No no no, hey. Look at me.” 

His eyes were barely open but full of stars. “Yerrso pretty…”  he slurred, and slipped into the void that Johnny Lawrence had sent many an adversary.

* * *

 

Anoush blinked opened his eyes to bright lights. Still hazy, he looked to his right and saw a beautiful woman. She actually looked happy to see him, so this had to be the promised land.  “Am I in Jannah?….” 

“I’m definitely not a virgin, so no,” Amanda said.  “You’re sort of on a cruise, just with bad food.  That punk bruised your kidney.” 

The beeps and whirrs of the machines began to reach him. “I have another one though, right?”

“Still two. You’re in a hospital, not a bathtub full of ice.” 

He felt the draft of the gown on his back as things started to feel more grounded.  “I don’t remember getting here.”  The only clear details were flashes of Amanda’s green marble eyes, wide with concern. He groaned, kneading his face. “Have you heard from Daniel?” 

She puffed out a sigh.  “No. But Sheila already sent you flowers, Karen donated twenty dollars to the Renal Trauma Foundation in your name, and your buddy Drago passed along a message of “if he dies, he dies _,_ ” she said in a deep Russian accent. 

Laughter was painful right now, but Anoush gave in. They looked at each other for a moment, her hand on his wrist. Amanda remembered the moment in the ambulance she didn’t dare speak of: the loopy profession. Anoush had looked up and said, “ _Mandy, I’ve loved you since the seventh grade.”_

_“Anoush, we met five years ago.”_

_“Exxxactlay. It transcended time and space an’ puberty….” he crooned, and was out again._

Amanda knew it was all probably a result of pain meds and unchecked kidney toxins, but it refused to leave the forefront of her mind. She stroked her thumb across the tan line of his missing watch.

Anoush turned his wrist so his palm was open, and her hand glided into his.

 She stood up abruptly when she heard a clamor of jewelry. “Oh, and here comes your mother.” 

Before he could even cringe, Soraya Norouzi burst through the door in a flowing paisley dress. “ _Eshgham_ , my baby! _”_ She squished him in her arms with no regard for his fragile flank, as he stifled a yelp of pain.“Didn’t I always say your big mouth was going to get you killed someday?”  She licked her thumb and wiped something from his cheek.

“Mamma!” Anoush groaned. (Amanda made no attempt to hide her amusement, and he threw her a look as Soraya continued to fuss.) “There’d better not be a ginormous stuffed animal being airlifted here.”

“Oh, no, don’t worry. It’s in the van. It wouldn’t fit in the elevator.”

Anoush squinted at Amanda. “You didn’t have to do this, really.” 

“Oh, but I did,” she grinned. “‘Keeping Up With the Norouzis’ is my favorite reality show.” 

“Anoushiravan, if you’d finally take a wife, I wouldn’t have to be at the top of your emergency list anymore!” Soraya nudged.

“Mamma, _nakon digeh!”_

They went back and forth in Persian and Amanda resembled a Michael-Jackson-eating-popcorn gif. 

Once mother and son calmed down a little, the old apron strings bound them again. Soraya clasped his hand and Anoush looked tired but invincible. It enchanted Amanda, just like Daniel and Lucille did. There was so much love in loudness and chaos.  She remembered the numb, stone silence of her parents, and how her friends envied her seemingly perfect family. Their hands-off approach to their daughter.  It was the furthest thing from freedom.

When Soraya had kissed her son goodnight and left, he shook his head at Amanda.  “Thanks for letting her know, Ringmaster. Hope you enjoyed the show.”

“I can’t help it. It’s adorable. And I love it when she breaks out the full name. You should use it at work—I think it would boost your sales. It’s alluring.”

“Oh, so _that’s_ why teachers always said ‘Anou-I’m-not-even-gonna-try-it.’ They couldn’t handle the ‘allure’?”

“Well, if those old white yuppies could say Tchaikovsky and Michelangelo and Dostoyevsky, they could’ve learned to say your name.”

He had always thought so, too.  The confirmation of it from her made him goofily content. “Listen, you look beat,” he said. “Go home, it’s getting late. Thank you. You really didn’t have to do all this.” 

“It happened on the clock, pal. Of course I did. I’m so sorry. Someday, those two lunkheads will understand the ripple effects of their bullshit.” 

“I hope so, but…still. Getting caught in the crossfire of a battle for martial arts supremacy is probably the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Believe me, it isn’t.” She leaned over the bedrail and kissed his head. “Goodnight…Anoushiravan,” she said in a voice that was low and sweet, and her forehead slowly rested against his.

 He was closing his eyes, but seeing colors behind the lids from the warmth of her.  Frame by frame, the nuzzle began to shift until their lips met so tenderly, they barely heard the kick-up of Anoush’s heart monitor.  70, 75, 80.  She felt his thumbs on her cheeks and he breathed in her sigh. Anoush’s bruises were killing him, but it was drowned out by the zinging of everything else.  Being valid, seen, held was all either of them knew then.

It was impossible to tell who drew back first, but it was terrifying, as expected. “I….” Amanda choked out, “…I’m so...I can’t even begin to scratch the surface of how unprofessional I was just then.”

Anoush nodded vigorously, not meeting her eyes. “I-I’m sorry too, very unprofessional.” 

“The stuff of training videos.” 

“All it needed was tracking lines, sad keyboard music and a big red cross-out over us.” 

“I’ll see you/feel better/bye,” she blabbered, exiting stage left.

Amanda got to the parking lot and remembered she didn’t have her car.  She sat on the curb and clenched a hand in her hair. “Uggnnh, and that was without a drop of alcohol??” She knew that when she called an Uber, she was going to tearfully confess the whole thing to the pot-smelling 20-year old driver.

She pulled out her phone and was shocked that it was ten o’clock.  She couldn’t believe the nurses hadn’t told her to leave.  Maybe they thought…well, it didn’t matter now.

Her thumb skimmed around all the outgoing calls to Daniel, still unanswered.  A song floated through her head from her days at the college radio station— _there’s no escape for you except in someone else—_ still as true as ever, as loud as dead air.

**Author's Note:**

> The line about Tchaichovsky/Michelangelo is from Uzo Aduba, I love it and had to use it. Lyric is from Elliot Smith’s “Easy Way Out”)
> 
> Let me know what you think! There’s a part 2 bubbling up in my mind, but I wanted it to work as a one-shot too.


End file.
